


Meeting the Inlaws

by Ghelik



Series: The 100 Fics [18]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Photographer, F/M, Guilt, John is a Mess, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 21:53:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9680564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: Murphy's life feels pretty good right about now: Emori's sleeping in his bed, sprawled like she owns the place, lips parted softly and hair all over the pillows . He could spend the rest of his life just watching her.That's when the universe decides to remember he hates seeing him happy and sends a late-night visitor to fuck with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second installment to "The Studio" [http://bit.ly/2kD2Ihl] as requested by the lovely @Daisytachi via Twitter, who probably didn't expect.... this. 
> 
> It's not happy. In any way or form. I regret nothing.

There are some things in his life Murphy can’t understand. None of those are the fact that his mum nearly beat him to death that one time, or that he’s slightly crippled due to a war injury. He even understands – sort of – his inability to cut his mother off his life. He understands that the only other person he ever trusted betrayed his trust so horribly, he ended up enlisting for six years. 

But all those things he can understand. 

What he really can’t wrap his head around is how someone like Emori can be sleeping in his bed, sprawled across the mattress like she owns it, hair strewn across the pillows, snoring softly.

Murphy sits cross-legged on his dining table, studying Emori in the dim light that comes in through the window. And maybe it’s creepy, but he can’t stop looking at her. 

It’s difficult doing when she’s awake and moving around like a whirlwind, even more so now when she’s calm and naked and asleep. He has a secret stash of photos of her in his bed. Nothing obscene or anything because he really doesn’t feel confortable making that sort of pictures, even if the model is awake and willing to do them. And with ‘not confortable’ he means, he gets sucked into flashbacks that have him bend over his toilet. 

No his stash is way more embarrassing, because people would expect that sort of pictures from him. It’s – apparently – the vibe he exudes. But the ones he has are from the shadows across her skin, from the bend of her fingers on his sheets, the tiny crease between her eyebrows, the slight curve of her hip against the backdrop of his window, illuminated with the lights of a passing car. 

They are the most beautiful pictures he’s ever shot, if he dare say so himself, and he knows he’ll never show them to anyone. 

He takes a swing from the bottle in his hand, absently running the fingers of the other over the raised scar that runs up his thigh. 

In his bed Emori continues to snore lightly. It’s a sound that vibrates through him, making him feel safe and at home. 

That is something else he doesn’t understand.  
And that’s the moment when the pounding against his front door starts, effectively dissipating the low content hum deep in his belly. Emori, being the extremely light sleeper she is wakes instantly, her eyes catching the street-lamp-light and glowing nearly orange. “Are you going to pass out on your table again?” she asks sleepily staring at him from across the doorway. 

Murphy smiles at her, but the pounding on his door starts again. With a soft, tired huff he jumps down from his table and limps towards his front door. 

The light on the hallway has been flickering ominously for over six months now, but it’s in this moment, when Murphy opens the door to a ragged and skeletal woman, that it really hits him, how eerie it is. The woman looks at him with a fever-bright smile and throws her thin bony arms around his shoulders. “John!” She sighs drunkenly against his shoulder, pressing him against her chest. 

Murphy closes his eyes. His hands itch, he is shaking like a leaf. “Oh, my John!” her fingers run through his hair and he’s crying, silently shaking in her arms, crushing her against his chest like the small scared child he really is. 

“John?”

Emori’s voice is quiet and unsure, the woman in his arms jerks away. “Who the fuck are you?” she growls all nasty edges. Murphy feels his hackles rising. “Mum”, he says softly and it sounds extremely shaky even to his own ears, “this is Emori.”

The woman looks at him. Blinks once, twice and her whole face twists into the ugly snarl Murphy’s used to see. “You!”

She launches herself at him, tackling him to the ground with the force of the assault, straddling his body and raining half a dozen punches, before Emori has time to come and pry the angry woman off him. 

She trashes in Emori’s grip, slamming her elbow against her temple so hard, she looses her grip. The second time she lands on Murphy, he’s able to restrain her, until she’s tired herself so much, she falls asleep on her son’s chest. 

Picking her up from the ground is easy since she seems to weight nothing at all. He puts her on the couch and goes to find a blanket. He can’t look at Emori. 

His cheeks burn with shame at having this… The pain he can deal with, the pity in her eyes… That will destroy him. 

“What the fuck?” growls Emori, and she sounds like…

Murphy cuts that thought at the root. The last thing he needs right now is to relate Emori to any part of his past. He dares a quick look and feels his insides twisting when he sees the small cut near the corner of her eye. That will probably bruise. 

“John” she growls stepping into his personal space with one of her long prowling steps. And he doesn’t mean to stumble back. He really doesn’t. 

But everything is crashing around him and he’s shaking and doesn’t know how to stop it. “What was that?”

“Sometimes, when she’s drunk, she mistakes me for my father”, he explains, looking down at his toes. “Then she snaps out of it.”

She can feel Emori frowning. “You father’s name is John?”

“Was.”

“What happened to him?”

“I did.”

Murphy lets himself fall against the couch, pulling his good leg against his chest. The other one won’t bend so much, so he leaves it lying uselessly in front of him. He can hear Emori shifting around the room, but can’t bear to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“I killed him.” He swallows the lump in his throat. Emori is the best thing that’s ever happened to him. And he already knows what will happen after he tells her. It’s happened before. Fucking karma coming to steal every last bit of joy out of his life. 

“What do you mean you killed him?”, there’s a note of panic in her tone. Rightfully so. They haven’t known each other for that long, really. She knows… so little about him. 

“I didn’t mean to. But that doesn’t matter.” Murphy looks at his mother, her gaunt face, the thin lips and her furrowed brow, etched into a permanent scowl even in her sleep. He’s done that, too. “It happened anyway.” It’s a mesmerizing sight, really: the skin taut over the cheekbones, the eyes sunken so deeply, the black and blue circles around them. “I wanted ice cream. I was sick and I knew he’d indulge me, even when mom had said I couldn’t have any. So I pestered and begged until he finally went out to buy some. The deli wasn’t that far away from home, I could see it from our living-room window. He should have been gone for ten minutes.”

“What happened?”

“Robbery gone wrong. If I hadn’t been….” He cuts himself of, because that sounds whiny and he will not whine about that. 

“You couldn’t know there was going to be a robbery.” Emori’s voice is very soft and he can’t decipher her tone. 

“If I hadn’t been a little pest and just shut the fuck up he would still be alive.”

“You can’t know that.” There’s a pause and then she’s kneeling in front of him, her good hand guiding his face to look at her. “John, he chose to go buy you ice-cream. He was an adult, he loved you and he wouldn’t have wanted you to beat yourself up over this.” She licks her lips. “How old were you, anyway?”

“Eight.”

Her breath catches in her throat, tears shining like stars in her eyes. “Eight?” Emori’s voice breaks, and this is about the moment when she leaves, or spits in his face or something. “John…” she shakes her head, long brown hair falling around her like the veil of a Virgin Mary in a church. His heart aches, looking at her, knowing this will probably be the last time he does. 

And just like that, she pushes forward and kisses him, crushing him against the sofa, her hands framing his face, carefully cupping his cheeks. “John”, she says again against his lips. 

“Don’t leave.” He whispers before he can bite his tongue and she kisses him again. “Please.”

Emori cards her fingers through his hair and lets him press himself against her chest. She doesn’t answer and when he drifts off, he’s convinced he’ll wake and she’ll be gone.

When he wakes he’ll have to deal with his mother, who will be angry and hung-over. He should probably hide any blunt objects before he falls asleep. He’ll have to deal with an angry Clarke, who will be pissed when her model tells her she can’t work with him anymore. He’ll have to call the hospital and tell them his mum has escaped – once again – and has been drinking – again. 

But for now… For now Emori’s cradling him against her chest, her knees bracketing his chest and her fingers in his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> So... Yeah...  
> Thanks for reading.  
> You can find me in Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram under the same username


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